head again. “I told you, I’m not going to sacrifice your life. You and Xephyra have never flown together. It’ll have to be one of the other apprentices. I’ll get—”
“The gate has fallen; we don’t have time,” Veronyka said desperately, calling Xephyra down to land on the ground next to them. Rex let out a melancholy croon, and Xephyra answered with a bolstering wail of support. The rest of the phoenixes were engaged in the fighting, swooping and soaring above, their bondmates busy and distracted. “You’re right, I don’t have experience—but you do. We can go together.”
“Veronyka . . . ,” Tristan said, desperation clinging to his voice as he eyed Xephyra. In the back of his mind, his fear of fire kindled, wanting to be let lose, but Veronyka sensed him clamp down on it.
“We go together, or I go alone,” Veronyka said, steel in her voice. The empire had already taken her parents and her grandmother. She wouldn’t allow them to take anything else. “We can’t let them into the village.”
“We don’t even have a saddle,” Tristan complained, but his words were cut off by a loud thud. Sparrow, panting slightly, had just dropped a strange-looking saddle onto the ground next to them. This was no horse’s saddle, but a phoenix saddle, with extra straps and buckles. Both Veronyka and Tristan stared in surprise, but it was Ersken who first spoke.
“There’s no time for you to debate it. Make your choice, and get on with it,” he said, patting Sparrow on the shoulder before returning to Rex’s injury. The girl beamed, proud of herself, before hurrying to hand Ersken bandages from his pack. The saddles must be stored somewhere close by, and he’d ordered Sparrow to retrieve it while Tristan and Veronyka argued.
Tristan hesitated another fraction of a second, then—
“Fine,” he said, and picked up the saddle.
He glanced at Veronyka as he approached Xephyra, and she hastened to tell the phoenix what was happening and to allow Tristan to saddle her. The prospect of being ridden by her Rider caused a surge of joy to ripple through Xephyra’s body, though she was wary of Tristan.
He has to come, Veronyka told her soothingly. I need his help—we both do.
Once saddled, Xephyra seemed to act upon some ancient, ingrained instincts—or perhaps she’d seen the other phoenixes do it—tucking her legs underneath her body and lowering herself to the ground. Tristan mounted up, while Rex watched in mournful silence. Veronyka handed him her bow and arrows, which he slung over his back before hoisting her up in front of him.
“You’ll have to steer,” he murmured into her ear. They were squeezed tightly together on a saddle that was only made for one, and the touch of his breath on her skin sent goose bumps trailing down her back. He quickly showed her where to put her feet and where to hold on, but she was flustered by the way his chest and thighs pressed against her. Luckily, most of her guidance would come to Xephyra through the bond. “She won’t be able to hold us both for long, but if we can get there, we can try to shore up the defenses while Xephyra distracts them with her fire.”
“Will you be okay?” Veronyka asked as Xephyra stood from her crouch and shook out her wings. Xephyra’s wasn’t the only fire they were about to endure—every bit of the village gate was burning. They were flying an inferno into an inferno.
“I’ll have to be.”
Xephyra leapt into the air, and one flap of her wings was enough to almost unseat Veronyka. She clung to the front of the saddle, using the stirrups as Tristan taught her, while he squeezed hard around her midsection.
Several more pumps of Xephyra’s wings, and they were soaring above the temple and back into the fray.
The world shrank beneath them, while the sky became a vast, black expanse that threatened to swallow them whole. The night was alive with the cold bite of wind and the gentle kiss of starlight.
Veronyka gasped; it was like being mirrored with Xephyra again, only far more visceral. Her heart pounded, her stomached clenched, and every inch of her body tingled. She had been dreaming of this day since she was a child, but never had she imagined that her first flight on phoenix-back would come amid a fiery battle for her life.
Xephyra flew above the phoenixes swooping back and forth in the sky, the sounds of the battle below almost lost in the